ThruNite TN32 Review -100% Thrower

LED Flashlights – General Info 18650 Flashlights
1

There are not many torches made ​​in accordance with the user requirements for taking the optimal possible performance from the LED.
ThruNite TN32 is the only light that comes from the manufacturer already overclocked and providing extremely high lumen output and distance of throw.
1700 lumens,230000cd coming from а nice relatively “compact” 3x18650 body and single Cree XM-L2 U2 LED.

An important part of the high performance-4 deep cooling fins and chrome plated copper alloy driver board/LED housing ready to handle all the heat coming from the driven with about 6 Amperes LED.

The most important part for the success here is the heavily driven XM-L2 LED and the beautiful Giant,very deep and wide smooth reflector.

Clean and stylish look. The chrome plated middle part shows you that this light is more special than the other and has a heart that beats stronger.

ThruNite TN32 is packed in very nice plastic box with aluminum frame.
The box provides great protection for the light and easy carrying.

The rubber foam is just right cut to fit the light inserted together with its holster.

Great holster for such a big light. Very well made,sturdy,a little thin,but just the right size and very useful. Velcro on the back for attaching.

Some copy/paste technical info.
Description:Designed for flashaholics only, ThruNite TN32 is much brighter than TN31. TN32 has a max output of 1702 lumen, even more powerful than TN31 XM-L2 version whose output is 1376 lumen. Copper plating chromium circuit provides better heat dissipation performance.Otherwise it has a streamline design and very beautiful body. It weights only 650 grams and very light to carry on. It is good for tactical and search purposes.
Key Features:
☆ Copper circuit provides better heat dissipation performance
☆ Improved UI for more lumens
☆ Ultra-clear tempered glass lens with anti-reflective coating.
☆ Momentary forward click tactical switch.
☆ Strobe mode for tactical and emergency use.
☆ Smooth reflector for max light output.
☆ Highly focused beam for maximum distance
☆ Tactical knurling for firm grip.
☆ Streamlined body design.
☆ Mechanical reversed polarity protection design for battery carrier.
☆ Intelligent highly efficient circuit board design for max performance and long run time.
☆ Specially designed for Military, Law Enforcement, Self-defense, Hunting, Search & Rescue and Outdoor activities.
☆ Intelligent temperature controlled light output for user safety.

I am really impressed of the machine work.All edges are smoothly rounded.

Regular triangular-cut threads.Nothing special here.
Well greased red O-ring.

Precisely made knurling. One of the best I’ve seen. Aggressive for stable grip.

The chrome plated connecting part is coming directly from the LED.
The heat from the LED and driver board can be felt most strongly here when the light is on.
Very high quality machining. There’s no even a single scratch or crushed edge.
Extremely well made anodizing.
The cooling fins are very well rounded and nice to touch.

User Interface
The different brightness modes are controlled by rotary magnetic selector ring with 8 positions.This is the ring between the cooling fins and the chrome part.
6 for selecting brightness level- 0.6lm , 21lm , 307lm , 709lm , 1132lm , 1702lm.
1 position for the variable frequency Strobe.
1 for Stand by mode.

There is a dent/click for each position with quite enough feel for seamlessly selecting the needed mode.
The tail switch turns ON/OFF the light.
The light can be turned OFF also from the selector ring.Then it is in Standby mode.
Operating with the selector ring is easy and convenient. There’s nothing to complain about using it.
The marks for the selected mode could be better,but actually in full darkness this is irrelevant.

The lowest mode is far counter-clockwise.Twisting the ring clockwise increases the brightness by 5 more steps. The 7th is the standby mode. The far right (clockwise) position is the Strobe mode.
When the light is in Standby mode,we have Highest level one step to the left and Strobe mode at one step to the right.
The UI can’t be better.

The brightness levels are well spaced,as the TN32 is maybe the only thrower that gives you a low mode of 0,6 lumens!!! This mode could be pretty useful in certain situations as power outages,etc.

This is a test for presence of step down.
The light was cooled with 8cm cooling fan. Duration of the test 20min. The first minutes are most important to see how the light manage the heat and how much the lumen output will change due to the heat.
TN32 maintains the output great which means that the heat dissipation design is successful.
There is a small step down 1 minutes after activation. The step is just 5% , from 95% to 90%. After that the light is absolutely constant. There is no any heat issue,especially well cooled TN32 keeps pretty good temperature.
There’s no low voltage warning.Using protected batteries is recommended.

3x18650 batteries in series needed for feeding the emitter.

When the batteries are inserted they press the springs to level where they get the shape of a cone. Their coils are pressed each other and this makes less resistance for the current flow.


Normal size forward clicky switch at the tail for turning the light ON/OFF.
I haven’t seen so well rounded edges around the tail switch(where will be placed our thumb).
It’s nice to see this care to detail in such a big light.

Very high build quality of every detail.

Stable battery carrier. Very well sized. All protected batteries that I use fit well.

Unique 70mm diameter smooth reflector collects all the power from the LED in a tight,ultra bright beam making TN32 absolute XM-L king of throw.

Ultra-clear tempered glass lens with anti-reflective coating.
Thick stainless steel bezel holds the glass and reflector in place and well protected from impact.

The light from the LED is clean cool white. No greenish or bluish tint. It gives quality illumination.

The front side of the bezel is precisely made,very smooth,no sharp edges.
There’s a little more gap between the bezel and the place where it is screwed and there has a little sharper edge.

Straight lines design.Good grip thanks to the deep knurling.

Thanks to the UI the light can be used with one hand without changing the grip,as shown in the picture below.
Turning ON/OFF and mode switching is possible just by twisting the control ring.

Size comparison with Fenix TK51.


Olight M22, Fenix TK51,ThruNite TN32

As expected from a thrower,the beam is focused in tight spot and thanks to the wide reflector still has good spill.
The peak beam intensity that I measured is ~230 000 cd.
This is definitely one of the best throwing flashlights that come directly from manufacturer.

All modes
1 meter, 1/50sec , white wall

All modes
1 meter, 1/250sec ,white wall

5 meters, 1/6sec

5 meters, 1/50sec

*Outdoor beamshots.
ThruNite TN32 All modes without UltraLow 0,6Lm*

ThruNite TN32 vs Lumintop TD16,Olight M22,ThruNite Lynx,UF C8 XM-L U3 Dedome,Fenix TK51.
Distance 70 meters to the tree.

See this pics here ThruNite TN32 Beamshots | Flickr

ThruNite TN32 , 70 meters to the tree

ThruNite TN32

ThruNite TN32 Vs Fenix TK51

C8 Dedome XM-L U3(60kcd) , ThruNite TN32 (230kcd) , Fenix TK51(45,2kcd)

ThruNite TN32 is definitely one of the best lights I’ve tested.Very high quality and care to detail.
I can’t point any disadvantage that interferes with the enjoyment of using TN32.
If I have to be really critical,the transition(looking the beam) from one mode to other is quite abrupt without gradual change that is easy for the eyes,but this is not something to complain about. Once you try the highest mode,you will not want to switch back to lower level .

Good UI, easy operating, extremely bright light, GREAT THROW. This is really a light that worth it.
I highly recommend it,no matter you are flashaholic or not. There’s no way not to be satisfied. And the price is quite acceptable for what we get, 100% true thrower.

Thanks for reading!
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TN32 provided by ThruNite for review.

2

Stunning photos and excellent review, thanks for sharing!

3

I started drooling halfway through the review.

Such a beautiful freaking light. There’s no way I could take one of these apart and mess with it.

4

Excellent review, FlashLion! I, too, was having visions of a new TN32 resting in my hands.

5

Excellent review, Love the pictures! Well done! :beer:

6

I cant say any more than the others. Thanks.

7

excellent review and stunning pictures… and outdoor beam shots is a plus!! :beer: :beer:
I wish all the review were all done like this :smiley:
unlike some people who got free light and do a half bake job presenting it without any beam shot or comparison shot :weary:
always enjoying your light review, can’t wait until you get another light to review :heart_eyes:
keep it coming :smiley:

8

A fantastic review that make me want one :*

9

Thanks guys!!

I like the beam shape of TN32. It gives really useful illumination at long range.
Dedomed LED will make the beam impressively focused,but maybe it will be not so useful for work.
Even though,trying TN32 with dedomed LED is very,very tempting :heart_eyes:

10

Excellent review! Thank you!

11

Impressive review of the ThruNite TN32. Suddenly my TN31 dont feel special anymore.

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Nice review and great photos! They really can't do too much to improve on the TN31, so there's nothing radical here. I'm not sure how much the copper/chrome pill helps, unless they added more true volume. The design of the pill area with the mag ring doesn't make it ideal for high amps heat sinking. For a stock light, the TN32 is truly incredible, but compared to the mod'ed TN31's, the most interesting improvement is on the pill. Like I said, the reflector probably has not changed - nothing better out there, the driver is superb, and the UI is close to ideal for a high power light.

Guess one thing looks like they did, is on a mod'ed TN31 running at 6.0-6.5A to the LED, mode 5 is really close to mode 6 - not much difference. On the TN32, it looks like they are running it at those high amps stock, but made mode 5 lower.

If their website specs are correct, on the thrunite-store.com site, they have the weight of a TN31 at 452 grams while the TN32 is listed at 650 grams - big difference there...

Now if they only got rid of the LockTite on the threads, a de-domed upgrade would be easy to get it to 500 kcd.

13

I am using Tenergy 2600’s in my TN32. When running at level 5 (~1,100 lumens), the light trips out after about 2 hours. The light just shuts off because the batteries are in a series arrangement and one of the protected battery PCB’s trips out. The resting voltage on the other 2 batteries is about 3.35 volts, so I figure the PCB is tripping at ~2.75 volts. I do not like to have to pull the battery carrier and check the voltage every time I use this light. It would be so much nicer if this light had an integral volt meter that let me know my voltage when the light is running.

Otherwise, this light is excellent! It may have less throw that an SR95S-UT (slightly), but it puts out more usable light. (I can’t see a kilometer in the daytime, anymore!) you get more light levels and it is 2/3 the weight, loaded. Nowadays, my Olight sits on the shelf, next to the RC40.

I just do not like it when the TN32 shuts off without warning.

14

Very nice photos. Thanks for the review!

That’s an interesting idea, but I doubt the compressed spring would make a significant difference unless it was completely flattened, effectively making the current path much shorter. Were you able to make any measurements?

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I am not sure I can explain it well in English.
The coils/turns of the spring are tightly pressed each other,so the path through the spring is shorter.
I tested it with a C8 light. Will be hard to test it in TN32.
There is an interesting thread on BLF Spring compression and current flow?

16

I believe the TN31/TN32 driver is true amp regulated, so lowering resistance of the springs won't increase output, but actually may increase runtime - I "think" the draw from the cells will be reduced to get the same level output to the LED. I've seen this behavior before, where I actually measured amps at the cells, and adding copper braiding to the springs lowered the amps but actual lumens output stayed the same.

17

I tried to measure the weight of this light.
I have only analog scale that can measure up to 500gr.
So I measured the head and the battery tube separately.
The battery tube with the battery holder weights 180gr.
I can’t measure the head well because it is heavier than 500gr,which means the light is heavier than the specified in the technical info,or they measured it without the battery carrier(50gr).

18

Empty Weight on my digital scale is 671 grams with the battery holder. My scale goes to 5000 grams or about 11 pounds maximum.

As the members posts noted the battery holder is short so the springs are fully compressed. Based on my early experience many protected button top batteries are too long to be installed in it. Tenergy protected cells are the shortest I have and fit fine, either flat top or button. As mentioned in an above post though I am not too sure of their capacity or quality. My next shortest protected cells are Soshine 3400 mAh button tops and I am ordering some additional ones as these are the longest cells that I can get to fit. I believe they are supposed to have Panasonic guts. I measure them as 68.4mm length though the seller lists them as 68.3mm. With my carrier as received these are the longest cells I can get in all three cell positions. This limits protected 18650 cell selection considerably.

Can any one tell me whether or not the battery holder can be shimmed or otherwise modified to accept longer cells or give me actual measured length of various protected cells so I have other alternatives for feeding this light. I note from the photos that the OP used Keepower cells. How long are those? The battery holder looks like it can handle either button top or flat top cells, just with the length limit noted. As the cells are used in series I do not want to try unprotected cells.

19

Keeppower 3400 flat or button top are 68.5~69mm length.
You can cut parts of the springs to free up some space,if you have tools.They are long enough to be cut.
This will not affect performance of the flashlight.
I don’t know why,but most flashlights are designed for unprotected cells even the manufacturers recommend using protected batteries.

20

I did end up shimming the battery holder successfully. I disassembled the holder, one end at a time, and found that I had some small stainless steel washers that made good spacers when placed on the stepped ends of the four rods that fit between the battery holder end plates. The washers I used had an I.D. of .180” or 4.5 mm and a thickness of close to .039” or 1 mm Using them on both ends of the battery holder extended it by just about 2 mm internally. Now it should be able to accept any 18650 battery length up to 70+ mm length which encompasses almost all of them that I know of. BTW one of the two special headed bolts used on the center shaft was not even finger tight so check this on your battery holder.

ThruNite was also contacted about the problem and is sending me a replacement battery holder from Singapore. No spares in the USA even though it seems to me like battery holders should be orderable accessories so light owners can order a spare to keep loaded with batteries for quick battery replacement. It seems to me that this would be a demand of emergency response personnel, cavers and others using these lights on the job and in hazardous environments.

Fenix with their battery tube extender kit for the TK75, TK61 and related lights is the only company that apparently has spare battery holders available as a standard orderable item. Seems like a dumb situation. About like buying a semi auto pistol and then being told that accessory magazines are not available. :open_mouth: